Monday, June 23, 2008

Well, to be honest (I hate that phrase...makes me think that the person who says that is getting ready to lie to me), I'm just lazy.

I had Friday off. It was nice. I slept in for a little bit but then had to take J.D. to the vet once again because his back legs are failing...once again.

We're trying the Prednisone and Baytril one more time. If this doesn't work, he'll have to go on daily heart pills. Pills that he can never go off of until he dies. Costing me $45 a month.

Sigh...why does the world have to rely on money for EVERYTHING? If I knew the vet would accept free sex as payment, I'd do it. Kills two birds with one stone that way...gets the pills and it gets Mama Dawg some lovin'.

But, he's happily married...sigh.

So, on Friday, light of my life got invited to the local gas lady's house to go swimming at her private pool with her grandchildren. By local gas lady, I mean the lady that owns the natural gas place where I purchase gas for my tank for my gas heaters (not the local lady that farts a lot...that would be me). She's nice and is really good friends with my aunt (hence the invite). Light of my life slowly learned to dive while there because her grand daughter (who's 10) is on the swim team and was teaching her how to dive.

She had a blast and came home all full of herself.

I went flower and berry picking in the late afternoon. We have all these black-eyed susans growing wild EVERYWHERE, so I decided to go pick a few and make a small bouquet for the dining room table.

While picking flowers, I noticed that some of the blackberry (no, Jared, not a BlackBerry, but the actual fruit) plants were already producing mature blackberries.

So, I went a pickin'.

Here's what my efforts yielded:

Here's the flowers and the blackberries together. Such a pretty pic. The scissors really set the whole thing off.

Here's a close up of the blackberries. Don't they look yummy?

Here's the flowers. Kinda pretty, huh?

Saturday pretty much was a regular day. Made a Wal-Mart run to exchange some primer and to get a few things for dinner that night.

My grandmother is down in New Orleans with my other aunt for a while, so my other aunt (that my grandmother lives with) was all alone.

So, we invited her for dinner on Saturday night.

Light of my life was in her element. I swear, she's gonna make a good politician's wife someday. She totally stole the whole pre-during-post dinner conversation. It was filled with witty stories about learning how to jump off the diving board, learning how to dive, attending the library's reading program, telling stories that involve various bodily functions (that part was a little gross) and whatnot.

Sunday was church and swimming. I also had to bathe the cats and then put on Frontline and give them a capstar pill.

Bathing cats is NOT FUN!

Due to J.D.'s bad heart and the stress that comes with getting a bath, I actually had to GET IN THE TUB with him to give him his bath. Poor thing. Once I got in the tub with him though, he stopped struggling. Maybe that's the key. However, I'm not gonna get in the tub with Mike. He'll kill me.

Oh, and I'm watching a DVD that was a mini-series on I think the Sci-Fi channel, called "Tin Man". Has anyone seen this? I'm obsessed. It's soooo good. I LOVE, WORSHIP, ADORE Neal McDonough.

Seriously, why do vets have to charge so much for their services? Or doctors, for that matter. It's not like we can avoid either of them. I wish we had the good old days back when we could pay with handmade goods or veggies from our gardens.

My weekend was quiet. Bought a whole lot of mangoes and made some low fat Mango Lassi ...yummmm

I used to go blackberrying all the time, back in NZ. Blackberry jam, blackeberry pie, blackberry sauce for icecream, etc, etc. Unfortunately there are really no places around here where you can pick blackberries. :-(

I've had cats my entire life, and have never once bathed one. I don't get it...cats are naturally very clean animals that bathe themselves constantly. Why would you ever bathe a cat? (genuinely asking, not snarky).

Coming over from SITS! I totally understand the cat thing...my mom had 7 of them and guess who got to help wash them? My favorite cat bathing tip came from the local yokel at the lumber shop where I grew up. He said to put a framed window screen in the bottom of the sink that way when the claws come out they catch on the screen. Needless to say, we didn't take his advice...we weren't too sure that he'd taken it himself!

Cats do normally groom and bathe themselves but when they have the extraordinary amount of fleas that my cats have been suffering with (due to country living, flea infested dogs getting up under the house that has no sub flooring and minute cracks in the flooring as well as tracking them in from the outside), the flea "dirt" that has been left behind (mostly dried blood from the scratching and whatnot), it was driving them crazy. The bath was to get rid of the flea "dirt" and to make them feel better.

It worked. They've been sleeping constantly (with relief, I hope) since I gave them their bath and they've not scratched once.

What a great post...sounds like a good weekend to me. Sorry about your dog..I hope the next round of meds helps him. So do you bathe the cat regularly? I've been thinking I need to bathe mine because they have long hair and it just seems like they need to be cleaned. They are like 20lbs each though so I know what you mean about getting killed. I'll have to think on that idea some more. I love hearing about the gas lady...that was just a funny explanation. I missed Tin Man when it was on tv, but I heard it was good.